Blender 2.44 was intended to be an upgrade release, mainly for plenty of bug fixes, but the developers took the effort adding at least a few interesting new features.

This version now is fully 64 bits compatible, new modifiers were added, a couple of composite nodes were added, and a revamp of the old mesh primitives was done. But most relevant to mention is Blender 2.44's new long-awaited but unexpected feature: subsurface scattering (SSS) support!